Plans Are Overrated, Anyway
by Calaeris
Summary: Another ending to the last series, in which Sherlock doesn't just listen to John's speech at his empty grave.


AN:/ Ummmm... second fill for the kink meme, which is still embarrassing to admit. The full prompt for this was:

While hearing John's speech at his grave from distance, Sherlock decides he can't go through with this anymore and walks up to John before having a breakdown himself, tearfully begging him to forgive him.

This probably wasn't what the prompter wanted, but I cleaned it up and put it on here because I liked it a little anyway.

Plans Are Overrated, Anyway

Continuing the farce that was his faked death was a regrettable necessity – regrettable, but not overly so. Sherlock had already calculated precisely what would happen after he fell from the top of St. Barts.

Mrs Hudson would be sad, but she wasn't precisely new to loss and he was just a tenant, after all. He had the grace to admit that the best people could usually say about him was that he was eccentric, when he wasn't considered downright annoying, so the grieving period wouldn't be too long. Naturally, he couldn't put an exact time limit on it (damned sentiment threw off his calculations) but perhaps three months and she wouldn't be immediately reminded of him at every little thing, nine months and she would be bustling about like normal, a year and he would just be another memory.

Lestrade might take even less time. It had disappointed him a little when the detective inspector had so easily fallen to Moriarty's game but honestly – the man might have been sensible enough to recognise when he was out of his depth on a case but he was still just ordinary like everyone else. Besides, Lestrade was a police officer, with experience in dealing with loss. He theorised that it would take perhaps three months to get over his residual doubt that Sherlock was, in fact, brilliant, and the rest of his career (what would likely be left of it) to get over everyone else's certainty that he was a fraud should Sherlock himself not return to correct them. If nothing else, he would be too busy being disappointed to actually be all that sad, and if he came across a case he found difficult, well, at least he would know for certain he wasn't calling in the man responsible for it.

The rest of the London police force weren't worth mentioning.

Mycroft – his brother would feel guilty. There was a part of Sherlock that felt a little bit of vindictive glee, though he would never admit it, and besides he wouldn't have time to grieve. He would, bitter as this pill was to swallow, need Mycroft's assistance over the next few years and it would be much easier if he knew Sherlock was alive to give it to him. He'd wait a week, then go put the man out of his guilt-induced misery.

John...

Well, John would grieve, like Mrs Hudson, and eventually move on once the media ceased hounding him about Sherlock's authenticity. He would likely stay at 221B for a while, then move somewhere else when it became financially convenient. At least his love life might improve, with Sherlock gone, and by the time he returned, he probably wouldn't want anything to do with him anymore.

Sherlock only planned on being gone for about two years (two years, one month, one week, four days, or perhaps five) although he wouldn't be surprised if it took longer to take down what was left of Moriarty's web. Naturally, he felt it only appropriate that he said farewell at his own funeral, and then when he knew that Mrs Hudson and John were going to be visiting his grave and he just happened to be in the area one thing led to another and he was behind a tree, listening to Mrs Hudson listing all the ways he made her angry. A little smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Obviously, it was only the usual smile of superiority when he was right – she'd be fine.

It was John's turn next, as Mrs Hudson walked away, and Sherlock listened carefully. These words were for him, after all, even if he wasn't exactly planning on turning the monologue into a dialogue.

"Um," John began, "you, you told me once, that you weren't a hero. Um, there were times I didn't even think you were human but, let me tell you this you were, the best man, er, the most human – human being I've ever known and no-one will ever convince me that you told me a lie, and so. There."

Sherlock almost came out when he started with the um-ing and er-ing just to tell him to spit it out already. He wasn't particularly impressed with the redundancy – the most human human being? please – and the obvious contradiction when he claimed that Sherlock had never lied to him. Of course he did! He had lied about the fact he was dead!

(But secretly, he heard and acknowledged the effort that John put into saying it out loud.)

John walked forwards and patted the headstone awkwardly, then continued speaking.

"I was, so alone," he said, and the stilted way he said it made much more of an impact than weeping and wailing could ever have, "and I owe you so much."

Sherlock heard the words – heard the tears threatening to fall – and wavered, but was utterly secure in the knowledge that what he was doing was right. He was doing it to protect the people he – yes – cared about. He couldn't let the criminal free-for-all that was coming as Moriarty's criminal empire collapsed take the people he knew with it. He would ensure it would fall, yes, but the way he wanted it to. And he knew John had plenty of people who cared about him, who would look after him, even if he did feel alone. That was just a socially acceptable response to the death of someone close. John would be alright. He had to be. What was the point of faking his own death so expertly simply to give it all up now? He wasn't staying away because he thought it was funny or because it made him seem clever (though, the way he did it – genius). He watched John walk away.

Then, John turned back.

"Please, there's just one more thing," fell out of his mouth in a rush, like the words were bubbling up in his throat involuntarily, "one more thing, one more miracle Sherlock, for me. Don't, be –dead. Would you do that," and he could hardly hear John's voice, "just for me, just stop it. Stop this."

It wasn't the words, or the way he said them.

It was the _faith._ The faith that Sherlock Holmes, of all people, could perform miracles, when all he'd ever done was observed.

And the utter, utter defeat.

John was probably the stupidest human being on the planet except for Anderson, and there were some idiots out there, for continuing to believe him, to believe _in_ him, but he couldn't let that go.

Before he realised he was doing it, he had stepped out from behind his tree.

"I am so very sorry, John," he said quietly, and then when John didn't do anything but go very pale very quickly added: "John, it's me. Sherlock."

"You're not Sherlock Holmes," John said, his voice hoarse.

"John I understand that you are going through a traumatic reassessment of your world, but yes, I am Sherlock," he insisted, rolling his eyes, "you aren't hallucinating either."

"Sherlock Holmes doesn't cry!" John said, a little louder and a little more forceful, but the muscles in his face were twitching. Either he was going to smile, or start shouting. It would probably be the latter.

"I'm not crying," Sherlock said indignantly, "look."

He swiped a hand under both eyes and it came away wet. If he was a normal man, Sherlock Holmes would have thought it had been raining or there was a sprinkler system somewhere, in a vain attempt to convince himself that he wasn't, in fact, crying - but that was an assumption an idiot would make based on a deep wellspring of denial and repression. And Sherlock Holmes was a genius.

"Oh," he said instead, surprised, "apparently I am."

John let out the most horrible sound, something like a gasp of relief, something like a moan of despair, stumbled forwards to grab Sherlock's forearms, then dragged him into an embrace. Sherlock let him. Apparently, once someone started crying it was a bit difficult to stop, and despite no previous history of hay fever or other seasonal allergies it was getting rather hard to breathe normally.

John punched him, but there wasn't any real force behind it. His shoulders were jerking in sobs, and Sherlock found he didn't want to let go. Not for a little while.

He just hoped Mrs Hudson didn't come back. It was difficult enough just him and John being all emotional, he didn't need a third person to deal with.

At least, not while he was still crying.


End file.
